1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to interfacing a wide-band network with a narrow-band network and more particularly to transparently interfacing a unidirectional wide-band broadcast network and the Internet.
2. Description of the Related Arts
Currently, there are two dominant digital infrastructures that are widely accepted and in public use. The first is the Internet structure also known as the world wide web based on narrow-band networks, and the second is Digital Pay television (TV) networks such as DirectTV.TM. based on wide-band networks.
Being the two dominant digital infrastructures, a single super hybrid infrastructure would provide an immense amount of information for its users. Users having access to the single super hybrid infrastructure would have limitless options available. However, no provisions have been made to converge the two infrastructures into a single super hybrid infrastructure. Moreover, consideration of the properties of each of these networks provides an understanding as to why the two infrastructure are not likely to converge into a single super hybrid infrastructure.
The Internet infrastructure relies on a backbone of limited bandwidth in view of the number of users and services that the Internet infrastructure supports. Users are typically limited to 28.8 kb/s (kilo bits/sec) accessing through telco lines. A fraction of the users are able to upgrade to cable modems capable of Mb/s (mega bits/sec) transfer rates. The terminals used to access the Internet possess high processing power and large amounts of storage. These terminals are commonly referred to as desktop computers. The terminal displays of these desktop computers also possess the ability to produce high quality pictures. In an effort to take advantage of the high processing power of the terminals and reduce bandwidth consumption of the Internet, programming for the Internet relies on the large amounts of computer caching available at the terminals. Increasing reliance is also placed on distributed processing, in which a portion of the processing is downloaded onto the terminal to complete the processing needed to access the various world wide web sites.
On the other hand, the wide-band network based Digital Pay TV networks rely on a wide-band broadcast mono-directional network combined with a point to point low bit rate (2400 bits/sec) bidirectional network. The terminals that receive the wide-band broadcast data possess low processing power and little to no storage media. The displays coupled to the terminals are low quality interlaced displays such as a typical National Television Standards Committee (NTSC) TV found commonly in most households. Thus, the terminals available to the wide-band networks possess low processing power with virtually no storage media for data and provide low quality displays compared to the Internet terminals.
Further advances based on the Digital Pay TV networks include interactive TV systems. In order to make interactive TV less costly and therefore more attractive to consumer acceptance, it is desirable to keep memory requirements in the receiver to a minimum. Thus, as development for interactive TV systems continues, the trend is to continue building terminals with low processing power and low storage requirements.
Contrary to the trend of maintaining low processing power and minimizing storage requirements, new Internet protocols that are being developed rely more on the processing power of the latest generation computers. Thus, as the Internet technology based on the narrow-band network develops and the interactive TV technology based on the wide-band network technology develops, the Internet technology and the interactive TV technology continue to alienate each other and move apart. Consequently, consumers seeking Internet access who subscribe to interactive TV are forced to acquire the latest generation computer. The cost of having both a subscription to interactive TV and the latest generation computer for Internet access can be cost prohibitive for the consumer. In order for the providers of interactive TV to supply a complete service, a transparent consumer interface between the wide-band network of interactive TV and the narrow-band network for the Internet is needed.
Therefore, it is desirable to provide Internet connectivity to low end terminals operating in an interactive TV wide-band network, and a method of operating the same that support on-the-fly translation and routing of data between the Internet and the interactive TV wide-band network for transparent access to the Internet.